Whether you are a Goth, Indie, Chav, or Townie it is all recognisable by what you wear. The rise of high-end designers like Chanel, Oscar, De La Renta and Jimmy Choo have made us crave looking like a celebrity - but at a cost. Is it any wonder we have an obsession with the ‘value’ that is Primark clothing?
I am faced with this predicament that Primark has altered our way of thinking about clothes. It is easy to be a copycat now, easy to not have an imagination, easy to be, dare I say it, low maintenance?
For decades clothes have been one of the staple statements in history. The swinging Sixties with mini-skirts, the Seventies with platforms and flairs, the Eighties with shoulder pads and colossal hair. The late Nineties saw the beginning of what can only be called, “The Carrie Bradshaw Phenomena.” But now, we seem to have come to a stand-still with fashion. Re-worked, re-made rubbish. It isn’t fashion. It isn’t a statement. It is Primark.
As that famous Meryl Streep scene in The Devil Wears Prada goes, “This stuff?! What you don’t know is that sweater is not just blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s actually cerulean. And you’re also blindly unaware of the fact that in 2002 Oscar De La Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns and then it was Yves Saint Laurent. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of 8 different designers and then it filtered through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic casual corner where you no doubt fished it out of some clearance bin. However that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs.”
Okay, maybe this is a long winded way of saying that Primark could be the equivalent of that tragic casual corner? The truth is, Primark is recycled designs, and there is nothing special or original in the collections. So why is it, therefore, that people go nuts for it? There is one answer that immediately springs to mind, and that is the fact that it is cheap!!
Whilst shopping, people no longer brag about how much they spent on a pair of shoes, or boast a ‘one-of-a-kind’ specially designed dress. The thing to shout to the world is that fact that you bought a new t-shirt and it “only cost you a quid!” and you "managed to get it in 10 different colours!" This has become our reality and there is nothing that seems to be reversing this backward way of thinking. This presents a whole host of problems, what about the independent designers? What about the boutiques? What about the designers? All of their collections created in vain, as some imitator in a bigger conglomerate can rip off their ideas; sell them for a tenth of the price, and at the cost of hundreds of slave workers. Is this right? Should we not be honouring the geniuses that created a kind of art? Museums are dedicated to paintings and yet fashion doesn’t seem to be taken half as seriously by the majority. As Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada says (with such conviction might I add) “Holt, Largerfeld, De La Renta, what they did, what they created was better than art because you live your life in it!”
And that we do! What would happen to the multibillion pound fashion industry if Primark became the statement of the Noughties and the Teenies? There would be no Vogue, no department stores, no high street, and even no Gok Wan! It just wouldn’t be the same! Okay so maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but it still wouldn’t be the same.
With the ever changing collections in Primark that seem to change weekly, you could almost have a new outfit for ever day of the week, however intriguing this prospect may be, chances are you are bound to see someone else in your bargain outfit, that one that you accessorised so much to make it look ‘different.’ Yet it is and will always be the same print, the same cut and ultimately the same dress, as that girl standing next to you in the bar.
Our perception of fashion has altered hugely over the last 100 years, that’s what has made each decade special and unique. Fundamentally however fashion has always been vital, it is a necessity, and it is what sets people apart. However different each collection or genre of fashion may be there will always be an underlying need and want for it. But since Primark has become this huge corporation there are too many copycats, too many clones and not enough individualism.
There will always be another trend, another gimmick just around the corner, some predominant examples: Facebook, Twitter, the iPhone, actually come to think of it - the whole Apple experience, Bluray and 3D films and that is but to name a few. But fashion, fashion should not be another gimmick, another trend that we must adopt. It is about individual style and not being a sheep, it is about expressing what it is that makes you, you. To some, a dress will always be a dress but for millions it can be the epitome of who you are.